▪ I. mongrel, n. and a.
(ˈmʌŋgrəl)
Forms: 5 mengrell, 6 mon-, mungerell, 6–7 mangrel(l, mo(u)ngrel, -ell, 6–8 mungrel, -il, mongrell, -il, 7 mungrill, 7– mongrel.
[app. f. root meng-, mang-, mong-, to mix (see meng v., mong n.1 and v.2) + -rel.]
A. n.
1. The offspring of two different breeds of dog. Chiefly, and now only, a dog of no definable breed, resulting from various crossings.
| 1486 Bk. St. Albans f iiij b, A Grehownd, a Bastard, a Mengrell, a Mastyfe. 1573 Tusser Husb. (1878) 98 Of mastiues and mungrels. 1576 Fleming tr. Caius' Dogs 43 Of mungrels or rascalls [L. degeneres] somwhat is to be spoken. And among these, y⊇ Wappe or Turnespet. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 154 Of the mixt kind of Dogs called in English Mangrels or Mongrels. Those we call Mangrels which though they be on both sides, propagated by Dogges, yet are they not of one kind. a 1613 Overbury A Wife, etc. (1638) 111 Like a true mongrell, he neither bites nor barks, but when your back is towards him. 1674 Lond. Gaz. No. 945/4 A great old Indian Spaniel, or Mongrel, as big as a Mastiff. 1697 Dryden Virg. Past. iii. 25 His Mungril bark'd, I ran to his relief. 1704 Lond. Gaz. No. 4079/4 A..Greyhound,..with..a brushy Stern like a Mongrel. 1766 Goldsm. Elegy Mad Dog iv, Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, And curs of low degree. 1827 Hood Mids. Fairies xx, A flock of panick'd sheep..Watching the warning mongrel here and there. 1862 Calverley Verses & Transl. (ed. 2) 48 A long-backed fancy-mongrel. 1882 M. E. Braddon Mt. Royal III. vi. 106 ‘What kind of dogs did you see in your travels?’ .. ‘Two or three very fine breeds of mongrels’. |
† b. Applied to persons as a term of contempt or abuse. (Cf. cur.) Obs.
| a 1585 Montgomerie Flyting 772 Gleyd gangrell, auld mangrell! to the hangrell, and sa pyne. 1601 B. Jonson Poetaster iii. iv, You mungrels, you curres, you ban-dogs, wee are Captaine Tvcca, that talke to you. 1620 Middleton Chaste Maid ii. ii, How did the mongrels hear my wife lies in? 1647 Wharton Bellum Hybern. Wks. (1683) 227 To the intent that this barking mungrel may not delude the ignorant with his pedling trash. 1764 Foote Mayor of G. i. Wks. 1799 I. 171 Is that your manners, you mongrel? |
2. In wider use: An animal or plant resulting from the crossing of different breeds or kinds; restricted by some scientists to the result of the crossing of varieties (opp. to hybrid).
| 1677 Charleton Exercit. de Differ. et Nom. Anim. (ed. 2) 26 Canis..Lyciscus, a Mongrel, engendered of a Wolf and a Bitch. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Mongrel, a Creature got by two kinds. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. I. 197 Mongrels, the offspring of the wolf and dog. 1828 Webster, Hybrid, a mongrel or mule. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. iv. 99 A large majority..of the seedlings thus raised will turn out mongrels. Ibid. viii. 273 The parents of mongrels are varieties, and mostly domestic varieties. 1879 tr. De Quatrefages' Hum. Species i. vii. 63 This crossing itself is differently named according to whether it takes place between different races or different species. In the first case it produces a mongrel, in the second a hybrid. |
3. A person not of pure race; the offspring of parents of different nationalities, or † of high and low birth. Chiefly in disparaging use.
| 1542 Udall Erasm. Apoph. 15 By the waie of reuilyng or despite, laiyng to the charge of the same Antisthenes that he was a moungreell, and had to his father a citezen of Athenes, but to his mother a woman of a barbarous or saluage countree. 1577 Hanmer Anc. Eccl. Hist. (1619) 356 Selenas,..a mungrell, by father a Gotth, by mother a Phrygian. 1600 Holland Livy iv. ii. 140 Being a mungrell, as it were, the one halfe a Noble, the other a Commoner. 1622 Fletcher Sea Voy. iv. ii, Cla. Of what sort are they? Jul. They say they are Gentlemen. But they shew Mungrels. 1708 Wilson, etc. tr. Petronius Arbiter 62 He's of a right Breed both by Father and Mother, no Mungril. 1870 Edgar Runnymede xxii, Men..of every race, mongrels almost to a man. 1898 F. T. Bullen Cruise of Cachalot 115 Neither do the Arab mongrels..bear any too good a reputation. |
| fig. 1632 Lithgow Trav. i. 2, I being..borne to the Muses, as to the World, a mungrell to both. |
4. In transferred applications, more or less contemptuous. † a. A person of mixed or undefined opinions, or who leans to both sides (in religion or politics). Also (rare), a person of undefined official position.
| 1554 T. Sampson in Strype Eccl. Mem. (1721) III. App. xviii. 53 A weak brother seeth you, as mungrels mingling yourselves with the Papists in their idolatry. 1561 J. Daus tr. Bullinger on Apoc. (1573) 58 It were better thou were a Sinner or an Heathen, than an hypocrite and a mongerell. 1632 Lithgow Trav. viii. 361 Our seuerall Ambassadours..at Constantinople, who rather stay there as Mungrels than absolute Ambassadours. a 1638 Mede Wks. iv. (1672) 819 You desired but to know what I thought of Genuflexio versus Altare, and I think I have told you; and you see hereby what a mungrel I am. 1645 King's Cabinet Opened 48 The King..despiseth you by the name of Mungrells, as not altogether firme enough to his owne designe. a 1677 Barrow Serm. (1686) III. 89 If thou wilt be brave, be brave indeed; singly and thoroughly; be not a double-hearted mongrel. 1713 Addison Cato iii. vi, Mongrils in faction, poor faint-hearted traitors! |
b. A ‘cross’ (between).
| 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 586 Whose Religion was a mungrell of the Greekish, Egyptian, and their own. 1645 Milton Colast. Wks. 1851 IV. 377 Though his two faculties of Serving-man and Solliciter, should compound into one mongrel. 1863 Cowden Clarke Shaks. Char. xvi. 411 In character he is a sort of mongrel between the thoroughbred jester-clown and the cur errand-boy. 1864 Carlyle Fredk. Gt. xvii. v. (1872) VII. 56 Some cart, or dilapidated mongrel between cart and basket. |
B. adj. (appositive and attributive uses of the n.)
1. Of dogs: That is a mongrel or of mixed breed.
| 1576 Fleming tr. Caius' Dogs 33 It remaineth that we deliuer vnto you the Dogges of a mungrell or currishe kind. 1679 Blount Anc. Tenures 10 A Mungrel Hound, for the Chase of the wild Boar. 1688 J. Clayton in Phil. Trans. XVIII. 133 There followed them two or three Mungrel Curs. 1773–83 Hoole Orl. Fur. xvii. 629 When th' exerting voice of village-swains A mungrel cur against the wolf constrains. 1890 C. L. Morgan Anim. Life & Intell. (1891) 168 The bitch retains the influence of the mongrel puppies..and therefore mongrelizes subsequent litters. |
b. As an abusive epithet for a person.
| 1605 Shakes. Lear ii. ii. 24 A Knaue, a Rascall,..and the Sonne and Heire of a Mungrill Bitch. 1606 ― Tr. & Cr. v. iv. 14 That mungrill curre Aiax. 1720 J. Hughes Siege Damascus v. ii. (1777) 63 Perfidious mungrel slave! |
2. In wider use, of animals and plants. (Cf. A. 2.)
| 1635 Swan Spec. M. (1670) 355 The Tassel [or male] of the Saker is called a Hobbie, or Mongrel Hawk. c 1645 Howell Lett. iii. 54 The Welsh nag..is right and of no mongrill race. 1768 Boswell Corsica i. (ed. 2) 40 Their sheep being of a mongrel race. 1770–4 A. Hunter Georg. Ess. (1803) I. 489 Care should be taken that the cabbage tribe..should be cultivated at as great a distance from each other as possible, to prevent the ill consequences of a mongrel produce. 1871 Darwin Desc. Man II. xv. 156 The result would..be the production..of a mongrel piebald lot [of pigeons]. |
3. Of persons: Of mixed race or nationality; having parents of different races. Chiefly in disparaging use.
| 1606 Holland Sueton. 30 Diuers mungrell Gaules no better than halfe Barbarians. 1670 Dryden Conq. Granada i. i, Their Mungril Race is mix'd with Christian Breed. 1728 Morgan Algiers I. i. 10 A mungrel breed of Tyrians and old Africans. 1805 Southey Madoc in W. xv, To learn that law from Norman or from Dane, Saxon, Jute, Angle, or whatever name Suit best your mongrel race! 1861 Lond. Rev. 16 Feb. 187 We Englishmen may be proud of the results to which a mongrel breed and a hybrid race have led us. 1871 Darwin Desc. Man I. vii. 225 An immense mongrel population of Negroes and Portuguese. 1879 Farrar St. Paul (1883) 354 Men..unsophisticated by the debilitating Hellenism of a mongrel population. |
4. transf. Of persons, things, classes: Of mixed origin, nature, or character; not referable to any definite species or type; that is ‘neither one thing nor the other’. Chiefly in contemptuous use.
| 1581 Sidney Apol. Poetrie (Arb.) 65 Neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulnes, is by their mungrell Tragy-comedie obtained. 1600 Surflet Country Farm vi. xxii. 792 Such wines are called mungrell or bastard wines, which (betwixt the sweete and astringent ones) haue neither manifest sweetenes, nor manifest astriction. 1632 High Commission Cases (Camden) 319 What is betweene Adam and Christ, halfe a new creature and halfe an ould, a mongrell Christian. 1645 King's Cabinet Opened 47 He [the king] calls those, who have deserted their trust in Parliament,..by the name of a base, mutinous, and mungrell Parliament. a 1661 Fuller Worthies, Wilts (1662) iii. 158 These Mungrell Pamphlets (part true, part false) doe most mischief. 1663 Butler Hud. i. iii. 1225 This zealot Is of a mungrel, divers kind, Cleric before, and Lay behind. 1691 Wood Ath. Oxon. I. 186 About that time King Hen. 8 [was] setting up a mongrel Religion in the Land. 1702 in Somers Tracts 4th Collect. (1751) III. 21 A Sort of mungril Church-goers, whose Conformity was not the Result of Principle, but of a luke-warm Compliance with the Humour of the Times. 1762–71 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) IV. 84 His imitators, without his taste, compounded a mungrel species, that had no boldness, no lightness, and no system. a 1764 Lloyd Law Student Poet. Wks. 1774 I. 24 That mungrel, half-form'd thing, a Temple-Beau? 1826 Hood Irish Schoolm. viii, A mongrel tint, that is ne brown ne blue. 1833–5 J. H. Newman Hist. Sk. (1876) III. i. iii. 51 [He] had been brought up..a mongrel sort of religionist, part Jew, part Pagan. 1884 W. St. J. Brodrick in Fortn. Rev. June 755 A subservient peerage, elastic principles, and a mongrel policy. |
b. Applied to a word formed of elements from different languages, or to a dialect made up of different languages.
| 1610 Holland Camden's Brit. i. 486 A mungrell name halfe Saxon and halfe Latin. 1652–62 Heylin Cosmogr. ii. (1682) 180 A mungrel Language, composed of Italian, French, and some Spanish words. 1715 tr. Pancirollus' Rerum Mem. I. i. viii. 21 Aurichalcum..is a mungrel Word derived from both those languages [Greek and Latin]. 1867 Deutsch in Q. Rev. CXXIII. 450 The Aramaic..had become in the hands of the people a mongrel idiom. 1871 Farrar Witn. Hist. iii. 93 If they spoke their own language, it bewrayed them by its mongrel dialect. |
Hence (nonce-words) ˈmongreldom, monˈgrelity, the condition of being a mongrel; ˈmongrelish a., ˈmongrelly a., resembling a mongrel.
| 18.. Moore On Hunt in Byron's Wks. (1846) 526/1 They suffer small mongrelly curs in their kitchen. 1859 F. Francis Newton Dogvane (1888) 40 A mongrelish-looking, coarse-sterned pointer. 1859 Sala Gas-light & D. xxi, A brown dog of an uncertain shade of mongrelity. 1884 Blackmore Tommy Upm. II. ii. 17 What marvel, that we have sold our birth-right to an acephalous mollusk, when the simple use of the tongue has passed into such headless mongreldom? 1889 Pall Mall G. 9 Jan. 2/1 [The dog] began to develop undoubted signs of mongreldom. |
▪ II. † ˈmongrel, v. Obs. rare.
In 7 moun-, mun-.
[f. prec.]
trans. To make mongrel or hybrid.
| 1602 Marston Ant. & Mel. i. Induct., Millane being halfe Spanish, half high Dutch, and halfe Italians, the blood of the chifest houses is corrupt and mungrel'd. 1607 ― What you Will i. i, Shall our blood be moungreld with the corruption of a stragling French? |